


your sharp and glorious thorn

by lowtides



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Loan Sharking, OC is pretty much a Stranger mission, Slow Burn, Treasure Hunting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-23 17:16:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17687624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowtides/pseuds/lowtides
Summary: “What’s your name anyway, Mister?”“Don’t see how that’s important to huntin’ treasure.”“Right. Should I just call you‘fool,’then?”The outlaw sighs. “Arthur. Arthur Morgan.”“Iris Cole. Terrible to make your acquaintance, Mr. Morgan.”-Arthur Morgan travels to Strawberry to collect a debt for Strauss. It might be the most trouble he's ever gone through for a debt.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, hi rdr fandom, just taking a little dip in here with some self-indulgent shit  
> (@ my fc5 subscribers reading this, i still have a lot of wips for fc5, so i definitely haven't stopped writing for that fandom btw)
> 
> **warnings/notes:**  
>  \- iris has a shitty, shitty grandfather, he doesn't say good things. there is one (1) slur from him due to iris' father being chinese. that's it. it will never be spoken again. i know. sorry.  
> \- this is probably gonna be a high honor arthur fic, he's just a big meanie in this chapter because he's loan sharking

Iris hangs up the last of the laundry to be done for the day, throwing the threadbare sheet over the line and reeling back when the wind whips it right into her face. Head in the clouds, on those maps she saw on a customer’s dresser when she was cleaning up in the hotel, she doesn’t hear the trot of a rider approaching her homestead.

Iris stares off into the damp white sheet she’s hung up to dry, absently smoothing it out over and over again. She knows the spot those maps were pointing to. It _has_ to be near Owanjila, it has to be. What would that traveler even expect to find there? Treasure? She _did_ hear a man in the saloon boasting about being a treasure hunter.

People visit Strawberry for all kinds of things—the scenery, the hunting in the area, the retreat from big cities. But she’s never heard of _treasure_ , let alone the occupation of seeking it. Now _that_ sounds like a life worth living.

“Miss.” A low, growling voice startles her from her thoughts and the laundry. Iris spins around to see a man standing right by the run-down fence of the property.

She can’t see his face properly, not with his head tipped down, the brim of his hat hiding nearly everything save for the warm glow of the cigarette sticking out of his mouth. He stands tall, feet set apart and hands resting on his gun belt.

She doesn’t have to see his face to know that he means trouble. He’s certainly succeeding in looking the part.

“Who’re you supposed to be?” Iris says, smoothing her skirt and keeping her voice steady. It’s not the first time trouble’s come knocking on her door, not when she’s got her good-for-nothing granddaddy ruining everyone’s mood the moment he hobbles into a room.

Though she wouldn’t have thought trouble would come anymore, not with him growing more weak and feeble with each passing day.

“There a Jameson Cole living here? Your father, perhaps?” The stranger says, tipping his head up and looking directly at her as he snuffs out his cigarette. “I’m here on behalf of a German fella, Leopold Strauss.”

“And what’s my fool of a granddaddy done to step on your German fella’s toes?” Iris scowls, putting her hands on her hips. “Gramps can barely take a shit on his own, he’s certainly not out in town starting fights no more.”

The stranger’s brows rise slightly. Whether it’s in surprise of her crass language or her granddaddy’s aforementioned state, she doesn’t know.

“I’m afraid it ain’t that, Miss.” The corner of his lips quirk up into a cruel smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and he shakes his head. He takes a few steps closer, now just a couple feet in front of Iris, close enough to practically tower over her. “You see, Mr. Cole borrowed some money from Mr. Strauss. A lot of money. And I’m here to collect.”

Iris frowns, feeling her blood begin to boil. Is that where Gramps has been getting all his whiskey? _Stupid old bastard._

“Oh, that good for _nothing_ —” Iris huffs and briskly walks away from the stranger, stomping over to the front door of her house—no, her _granddaddy’s_ house as he often likes to remind her when she tries to talk some sense into the old man. She swings open the door and shouts, _“Gramps!”_

Behind her, she hears the stranger hum curiously.

“What is it now, girl?” she hears Gramps yell back, coming from the kitchen. Iris crosses the short distance to the kitchen to find Gramps slumped in a chair, stinking of alcohol. There’s a bottle in his hand. And there are five more bottles scattered about the small dining table. Empty bottles.

“How do you think you’re going to pay what you owe?” Iris snaps. “What were you thinking? That you’re gonna find money at the bottom of all these damn bottles?”

Gramps doesn’t get to spit back at her, because heavy footsteps thump on the floorboards as the stranger makes his way over, tall and menacing, and grabs Gramps by the arms to hoist him out of his chair.

_“Jameson Cole_ ,”the stranger growls, the low timbre of his voice sucking all the air out of the room. He slams Gramps against the wall, pulling him up so they’re almost nose to nose. Gramps makes a strangled, panicked noise. The stranger has lifted him high enough that Gramps has to stand tiptoed to make up for it.

“What—what do you—who—”

“You borrowed money from Leopold Strauss! It’s time you pay.”

“I d-d-don’t have money!” Gramps stutters out, bloodshot eyes wide with fear. His eyes dart over to Iris, standing stock still as she watches the exchange. “Iris! I-Iris! Girl, pay the man!”

“It’s _your_ debt, old man!” Iris scoffs, astounded. “I feed you, I wash your clothes, I buy your tonics—I’m not going to be your bank as well!”

“You no good leech!” Gramps hollers, red in the face. “I let you live under _my_ roof for how many years—”

“Enough!” The stranger snarls, throwing Gramps to the ground. “I don’t care who pays, so long as I get the money.” He grabs Gramps by a bunch of his shirt and pulls back his fist in threat. “I assure you, I’m gonna collect either way, and we can end this with you bleedin’ or we can end this with your granddaughter in black.”

Gramps stammers, unintelligible pleas tumbling out of his mouth. Iris watches, somehow feeling calm about all of this—that is, until the stranger follows through with his threats and punches Gramps right in the face.

_“Where’s the money!”_ The stranger snarls, punching Gramps again before he can recover. “This’ll all be over soon if you just pay up!”

“Iris—pay the man!” Gramps splutters, his crooked face all bloody now. Another punch. “Pay the man! _Pay him!_ ”

“I ain’t playing games!” The stranger barks, he grabs Gramps by the back collar of his shirt and starts to drag the old man across the floor. “How’s about you n’ me take this outside? So the lady don’t have to see the rest of this.”

_Gramps is old and feeble, he’s a leech and he’s going to die soon anyway—why try to save him?_

“Pay the man, Iris!” Her granddaddy looks at her desperately, bloody and pitiful.

_Damn it all to Hell._

“How much!” Iris says before she can think twice. She hates that old man, ever since momma died he’s been nothing but cruel to her, but this damn loan shark doesn’t look like a quitter.

“’Scuse me?” The stranger halts, voice going up an octave. He’s looking right at her now, brows knit in confusion. It’s as wrong a time as any for Iris to think that without the malice on his face he’s actually quite handsome.

“How much money does he owe?” Iris asks, keeping her voice even.

The stranger blinks once, twice, then the hardened expression slides back onto his face. His response is a gruff, “Fifty-two dollars.”

“Lord above,” Iris scoffs bitterly and stomps towards her bedroom.

She doesn’t have much in her savings, last she checked. For all she knows, fifty-two dollars could be all of it.

Gramps whimpers out in the kitchen, the pathetic sound followed by a small thump of a body dropping onto the floor. As Iris pulls open the bottom drawer to her dresser to dig out the little box she keeps her money in, she hears the stranger’s heavy, baleful footsteps walking over to her open door.

“You gonna shove me around too, Mister?” She snaps without turning her head to look at the stranger.

“You ain’t the debtor, Miss Cole, so no,” the stranger says, voice lower and softer, but his tone is still sharp as a knife. “But I _will_ keep beatin’ on your granddaddy if you don’t got the money. There’s no ending to this where I leave empty handed.”

“And if you kill him before he coughs up what he owes?”

“Then his kin inherits the debt.” She hears him knock on the doorframe. “That’d be you.”

“And here I am,” Iris murmurs, opening her money box. “Paying the debt anyway, while he’s still breathing.”

Inside her money box is a pile of bills. A _small_ pile of bills. Is it possible to feel dread and fury all at once? She _had_ money. She knows she had money. From the hotel, from the time a customer tipped her good for a bath. She had to have forty dollars at least. This is barely twenty.

“You alright there, Miss?” The stranger asks from the doorway. “Look about as pale as those sheets you were hangin’ up outside.”

Iris snatches what’s left of her money and slams the drawer shut. “That drunken _bastard!”_

The stranger backs up to make way for her as she thunders out of her room, rough hands brushing against hers as she shoves the money into his chest.

“This isn’t—”

“That’s seventeen dollars. That’s all of my savings,” Iris says angrily, stomping back into the kitchen to point accusingly at Gramps on the floor. “That’s all of my savings, all I can pay you because _this_ stupid old fool stole the rest and spent it on drink!”

“You live under _my_ roof,” Gramps spits, his trembling, wrinkled hand raised to nurse his bloody nose. “That money ain’t yours, it’s _mine!_ I have a right to everything under this roof!”

“Why you _evil old—_ "

“Shut it, the both of ya!” The stranger hollers, raising his voice over their arguing. Iris looks away from Gramps to see the stranger scowling at them, teeth grit, large hand cupping his clenched jaw. “I don’t care who stole money from who, so long as I get the money. _All of it_. Gonna need a lot more than _seventeen_ dollars, Mr. Cole. I _will_ break every bone in your body if I have to.”

“We don’t have anything else,” Iris sighs, nervously smoothing out her skirt. _Will he really kill Gramps? Right here?_

“Well then,” the stranger growls, stalking towards her granddaddy. “This just got even _more_ painful for you, Mr. Cole. You and the lady here have been wasting a good part of my time, and now I really gotta _squeeze_ the money outta ya—”

“Take Iris! T-Take the girl!” Gramps cries out, backing away from the stranger faster than she’s ever seen his old bones move.

_“What?”_ Iris nearly shrieks. “What’s gotten into your tiny head—”

“Take her! You and that goddamn German can have her!” Gramps begs, eyes wide with fear. “The girl’s been nothin’ but a thorn in my side since the day she was born! Product of somethin’ unnatural she is, the humiliation I faced when my daughter fell for some filthy chinaman—"

“You do just fine humiliating yourself, old man,” Iris hisses, fists trembling at her sides. “I’ve done nothin’ but look after you like a _child_ ever since momma died—”

“Take her!” Gramps pleads, waving a bony hand towards Iris. “I don’t care what you do with her! Sell her if you have to! Grown woman and never married, she is. You outlaws’ll find somethin’ to do with her!”

“I ain’t in the business of taking women, old man,” the stranger—the _outlaw_ —says slowly. A dark look passes over his face, different from the threatening one before. He looks just about ready to shoot Gramps in the head. “I hurt people, Mr. Cole. I kill. I rob. But me—the folk I run with—we don’t follow whatever sick shit you’re suggesting. I’m here for _money,_ and money only.”

There’s a lump in Iris’ throat. She’s relieved, of course, she’s relieved to know that the outlaw isn’t going to take her away. But something in his demeanor has changed, and Iris doesn’t know if it’s for the better. Before, the outlaw just looked intimidating, here to scare Gramps. Now he just looks deadly, cold and detached.

Perhaps he’ll end up killing them both if they don’t come up with the money.

“I don’t—I d-d-don’t have…” Gramps trails off, voice small and pathetic as he cowers on the floor.

“Then we’ve got a problem, don’t we?” The outlaw says. “I oughta string you up and toss you off Owanjila dam for all my time you’ve wasted. Or maybe I’ll just cut you up till you _bleed_ money.”

“Wait!” Iris says, something firing up in her head at the mention of Owanjila. “I—I think I know how to get you your money.”

The outlaw looks at her expectantly.

Iris takes a step back, lifts her arm to point dumbly in the vague direction of the hotel. “There was a man. He came through town lookin’ for a treasure—”

The outlaw scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Aw, shit. Don’t bother stalling—”

“It’s real! It’s real and I know where it is,” Iris says firmly. “The—he—he’s still looking for the treasure. But I know where it is. It’s a spot in Owanjila, just north of the dam.”

The outlaw pauses, thinking it over. With one last glance at the pathetic heap that’s Gramps on the floor, he nods. Head bobbing once, twice, then scratches at the scruff on his face when he looks back at Iris. His knuckles are spotted with her granddaddy’s blood.

“How much money’s in it?”

“I don’t know,” Iris admits, and before the man can roll his eyes again, she adds, “but it’s called a _treasure_ for a reason, ain’t it?”

“Alright, go on then,” the outlaw relents, swinging his arm in motion for her to get a move on. “Let’s get this over with.”

 

-

 

“How’d you find this _treasure hunter_ , anyway?” The outlaw calls out from his horse. He says _treasure hunter_ like he doesn’t fully believe her. She doesn’t blame him. “Odd profession for a lady like you to be interested in.”

“I clean the rooms in the hotel. Saw the treasure hunter’s map laying around.” Iris rides ahead on Sammy, Gramps' old Morgan that doesn’t care for who rides him. “And what sort of profession’s a lady like me supposed to be interested in, anyway?”

“Well, I don’t know,” the outlaw says, and if Iris were a fool she’d think he sounds quite sheepish. “Whatever you do in the hotel, I guess.”

“Oh. Yes. I love devoting my life to washing soiled sheets so I can pay for my granddaddy’s liquor,” Iris says bitterly, tugging one side of the reigns. “We turn left here.” She glances back to see the outlaw following closely behind. “What’s your name, anyway, Mister?”

“Don’t see how that’s important to huntin’ treasure.”

“Right. Should I just call you _‘fool,’_ then?”

The outlaw sighs. “Arthur. Arthur Morgan.”

“Iris Cole. Terrible to make your acquaintance, Mr. Morgan.”

A low, bitter laugh escapes from Arthur Morgan _._ “You ain’t the first to feel that way.”

“Really?” Iris deadpans.

“Comes with the job, I s’pose.”

 

-

 

After a few more minutes of quiet riding, they reach the treasure spot. At least Iris hopes so. She’d rather not find out what Mr. Morgan would do if she were wrong. _Would he kill Gramps and pawn off every single one of my belongings for the debt? Not like anything in that house is worth something._

Just north of the dam, after going off the path and atop a small hill facing the lake, Iris dismounts Sammy and looks around.

“Well,” she says lamely, “this is the place.”

“So… what exactly is the treasure here, Miss Cole?” Mr. Morgan huffs as he dismounts his horse. “The deer shit at the edge over there?”

“This was the exact place in the map,” Iris frowns, tossing her braid over her shoulder. She walks over to a boulder near the center of the hill’s plateau. “The marked spot was right here.”

Mr. Morgan, hands ever on his gun belt, assesses the area from under his hat. Then he looks over at Iris and squints right at her.

Iris wrings her fingers together, unsure what to do with her hands as she squirms under his gaze. “What? What is it?”

“Right by that rock, you said?”

She nods eagerly.

Mr. Morgan wrinkles his nose, shoulders heaving in one long-suffering sigh, and walks towards her. Before she knows it, the outlaw is standing right in her space. He looks at the boulder, then her, then back at the boulder.

Iris crosses her arms and looks up at him. “I don’t think I like how close you’re standing, Mr. Morgan.”

Mr. Morgan tilts his head and rolls his eyes, his face briefly disappearing behind the brim of his hat when he ducks his head down. “Neither do I. Now, if you could be so kind as to step aside, Miss.”

Iris scowls but obliges, taking one step back.

The outlaw turns his attention to the boulder, looking around its cracks and crevices.

“What… are you doing?”

“In my line o’ work, you see money stashed in all sorts of places,” he begins, scratching the short beard on his face. “Under floorboards, inside hollow trees, buried in the ground…” He moves around the boulder, then moves his arm around behind it, an expression akin to a wince gracing his face. “Tucked away inside hollow rocks.”

Mr. Morgan then retreats from the boulder, and his arm comes back into Iris’ view. The sleeve of his jacket is dusted with cobwebs. He’s holding something—something wrapped in dusty, stained canvas.

“Oh,” Iris gasps, eyes lighting with glee, with vindication. “it’s real! The treasure hunter wasn’t a madman!”

“And you were right,” says Mr. Morgan as he unwraps the treasure. “It was exactly where you said it would be.”

“How did you know where to look?” Iris asked, eager to learn. Despite the chill in the air, she felt warm. Finding hidden things, _valuable_ things—it’s thrilling. “How did you go about it?”

He blinks at her, frowning softly. “Well, uh. You said it was by this big rock.”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware of that. And?”

“… And I saw an opening and stuck my arm in it.”

“That’s… that’s all there was to it?”

“Well, yes. I don’t know what answer you’re lookin’ for, Miss.”

“There wasn’t any special instinct to discovering such a thing?”

“My instinct was to stick my arm,” he points off to the boulder, “into that there rock. Nothin’ special about it.”

“Oh,” Iris says. “You weren’t worried about somethin’… I dunno, biting you?”

“Somethin’ _inside the rock?”_

“Sometimes we all fear silly things. A hollow rock’s a dark, scary place to stick your hand into.”

“Miss Cole,” Mr. Morgan snorts, “The _world_ is a dark, scary place. I ain’t afraid to stick my hand in it. Hell, most of the time I’m likely to be the creature that bites the hand.”

Iris narrows her eyes at him. Is he trying to scare her some more? She opens her mouth to retort, but every thought goes still at the clicking sound of a gun at the ready.

“Well, well. Seems I have competition,” a new voice says.

Iris spins around to see three men standing at the slope. In an instant, her view of them is blocked by Mr. Morgan’s broad shoulders as he steps right in her way. Iris steps back slightly so she can see the newcomers again.

“You looking for somethin’, partner?” Mr. Morgan says as greeting to the man in the middle—the man pointing a gun at them. The harsher, growling tone has made its way back to Mr. Morgan’s voice. Iris hadn’t even realized it had nearly disappeared when he was speaking to her.

“If you’re here,” the gunman says, his balding head catching in the sunlight, “then you know you’re looking for the same thing as me, friend.”

Mr. Morgan, right hand hovering over one of the revolvers on his belt, keeps his left hand with the treasure behind his back. He wiggles the wrapped treasure, as if to draw her attention to it, as if to tell her to take it.

Iris slowly reaches to take it, drawing slightly closer to Mr. Morgan so that his body continues to eclipse the treasure from the three men. Peeking out from his arm, Iris’ eyes widen when she recognizes one of the men.

“Mr. Davis?” Iris exclaims, noticing her boss sweating bullets behind the balding treasure hunter.

“M-Miss Cole?” Davis stammers back, eyes wide behind his spectacles. “What are you doing here? Who is this man?”

“Oh, well, he’s a—”

“I’m someone you don’t want to cross,” Mr. Morgan gruffly interjects. “So I’d _advise_ you to tell your pal here to stop pointin’ that gun at me. Or else we got a problem.”

“What’s that you’re holding there, Miss?” The third man says, his handlebar mustache twitching as he smiles. Iris recognizes this man too, he’s one of the treasure hunters she actually saw around Strawberry, boasting about himself. “It seems that you’ve already found what we’re looking for.”

Mr. Morgan’s fingers twitch over his holster. “You’re mistaken, _friend_.”

“Do you hear that, Thomas?” The balding one says to the boasting one— _Thomas_ —as he takes a step forward and jerks his gun at Mr. Morgan. “Let’s just kill them. We don’t share our treasure.”

Iris feels her stomach flip. _Let’s just kill them._ Oh, she’s going to die now, isn’t she? The thought fills her with more fear than Mr. Morgan’s loan collector intimidation ever did. Those were threats to _hurt,_ and this? This sounded like a promise.

“Kill them?” Davis squawks, looking at his companions incredulously. “I didn’t ask to be a part of this!”

“No, you didn’t,” Thomas nods sagely, unholstering his pistol. “You asked for cut of the money. Thank you for leading us to the treasure, Mr. Davis. Here’s your payment.”

Iris jumps at the gunshot. Davis is limp on the ground before he could even protest.

“You killed him!” Iris hears herself exclaim. “You—you just—"

“Jesus,” Mr. Morgan exclaims. “What’d that feller ever do to you?”

“We don’t like loose ends,” the balding treasure hunter says, looking pointedly at Mr. Morgan and Iris.

“I see,” Mr. Morgan says, voice low with anticipation. “Then we _do_ have a problem on our hands.”

Then he moves like lightning, drawing his gun and firing twice. The treasure hunters—both of them—fire back reflexively. The gunfire is loud and jarring, but it's over before Iris can even cover her ears.

The two treasure hunters fall to the ground. The air smells like gunpowder and blood. Mr. Morgan lets out a shuddering breath, holstering his gun and moving to clutch his left arm. He pulls a small bottle out of his satchel and takes a swig of it before putting it away and turning to Iris.

“You alright?”

“You… shot them,” she says dumbly, clutching the treasure like an anchor.

“I _killed_ them, Miss Cole,” he corrects, not a trace of regret on his features. “They were gonna kill us.”

“I suppose… I suppose I should thank you, then.”

“You can thank me by resolving the goddamn debt.”

“Yes,” Iris nods, swallowing down bile. “Right. Uh, let’s see.”

She wills her hands to stop trembling, but they won’t. It takes her a moment to properly pull away the old canvas wrapping. When the contents are revealed, Mr. Morgan lets out a low whistle.

There’s a money clip, a rolled-up piece of parchment, and something that looks to be gold. Mr. Morgan goes for the money first, the blood—his blood—on his fingers smears onto the palm of her hand.

“You’ve been shot,” Iris says, looking at the arm he was clutching just moments ago.

“Just a graze,” he shrugs, thumbing through the money. “I’ll live.”

“Is that enough?”

“Just about,” he nods and steps back, pocketing the money. “This might just be the most trouble I’ve ever gone through for a debt.”

He starts to walk towards where they left their horses hitched by the trees, and Iris finds herself confused.

“Wait!” She calls out, and Mr. Morgan stops right by one of the bodies. “You’re… you’re not gonna rob me for the rest of the treasure? This… there’s a gold nugget here.”

The outlaw turns around, raised eyebrows disappearing under the brim of his hat. “You _want_ me to rob ya, Miss?”

“No. _No._ I just… I thought that that’s what you do. I suppose I’m just trying to make sense of why you’re not snatching this gold from me.”

Mr. Morgan grunts as he bends down to loot one of the treasure hunters, casually replying to her as he pats down the corpse. “I’m just here for the debt. That’s it. Had I not been here for that… _maybe_ I woulda robbed ya.”

“Oh.”

He straightens up and puts whatever he found into his satchel. “Besides, with a granddaddy like yours, you need that gold more than I do,” he shrugs, turning away. “I can just rob some rich bastard if I wanted gold.”

“Oh. That’s a relief, I suppose,” Iris breathes, stumbling back as her eyes roam over the blood splattered grass and bodies. She falls back, sitting on the grass numbly. “So long then, Mr. Morgan.”

“Good luck to ya, Miss Cole,” he calls out from his horse.

Mr. Morgan’s horse trots over the bodies, then he clicks his tongue, halting his steed in its tracks. He looks over to where she’s sitting in the grass. When Iris drags her attention back to him, there’s a strange expression on his face. Scrunched up, as if he’s debating something within himself.

“Do you…” he begins, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Do you need me to escort you back into town? You don’t look alright.”

“I just need a moment.”

“I wouldn’t stick around if I were you. Those shots were loud, law might be comin’ soon.”

“Yes. I’ll… I’ll leave soon. Goodbye, Mr. Morgan.”

He presses his lips together. “Are you _sure_ you don’t need—”

“Please, just go,” she says, looking at the dead bodies again, feeling… feeling something. And nothing. “You got your money, now leave me be.”

Mr. Morgan assesses her for one moment longer, then nods and keeps his head down, hiding his face behind his hat. He clicks his tongue at his horse. “Let’s go, boy.”

When he’s long gone, Iris lets out a shuddering breath and looks at the items in front of her. The gold nugget must be worth something, but she doesn’t know how or who she could pawn it to. She unrolls the weathered parchment they found with the money and gold, careful not to tear it.

Iris laughs—a nervous, half-crazed sound. It’s another treasure map.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i don't know how long this will be (hopefully not long), this is the first time i've never had any semblance of a plan! uncharted waters!! i'll probably see what kind of response (kudos/comments) i get before continuing, since i have only the vaguest ideas of where this is going right now
> 
> thanks for reading! <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: some animal violence near the end (typical to the game, probably described even less graphically than seen in the game)

Arthur doesn’t like riding into Strawberry. It’s not that he’s nervous someone will recognize him from the time he broke Micah out of jail, it has more to do with the fact that he and Micah just about killed half the town.

No one is going to recognize him. No one is alive to recognize him. And it’s _that_ that stirs guilt in his belly. He’s never been one to enjoy killing needlessly. Let alone half a town of innocent people.

Arthur lights a cigarette, pressing it between his lips to stop himself from gritting his teeth. No, Micah Bell has already ruined enough things for the gang, Arthur’s not going to let the mere _thought_ of the man ruin his day now too.

 _STRAWBERRY_. Arthur lets his eyes linger on the overhead sign as he takes a drag of his cigarette, passing through his exhaled smoke, looking as if a fog had parted for the tourist town to grace his vision.

He can probably stay the night here, before setting out again tomorrow. _Watson’s Cabin_ , right up north in Big Valley. A tip worth looking into, especially since he was only a day’s ride out of Strawberry when he heard about it.

Back in Strawberry, barely two days since he beat that godawful old man and left his granddaughter with a bunch of dead bodies by the dam. He sighs. This robbery better be worth it, he’s spent far too much time away from camp, he’s gotta have something good to show for it when he gets back to Horseshoe Overlook.

“You… What the hell are you doing back here!”

Arthur tenses up. Hopefully they weren’t talking to him.

“Hey, hey, I’m talkin’ to you!”

Arthur sighs and stops his horse, Charon, right outside the hotel. The mayor’s reciting the same speech he hears every time he rides into town, it’s nothing but background noise now, just about as significant as the cigarette butt Arthur tosses into the dirt.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard ya,” Arthur grumbles and slides off his horse. He turns around, briefly looking for the source of the voice before he wrinkles his nose at the sight of the man.

It’s Jameson Cole, looking about as drunk as Uncle on his birthday. Whatever this man has to say to Arthur, it isn’t going to be any good. At least this isn’t going to be about that awful business with Micah.

“Mr. Cole,” Arthur greets coolly as the old man staggers towards him, bottle in hand. Jesus, the man hasn’t even crossed the road and Arthur can smell him from here. “I think it’s best you and I don’t talk.”

“You—y-you good fer nothin’ thief,” Cole hiccups when he’s close enough to Arthur, much to the dismay of Arthur’s sense of smell. “You kidnapper!”

“Excuse me?” Arthur says slowly, quietly, not keen on the attention the man’s words are drawing to the pair of them. The new Sheriff is an earshot away, dammit, Arthur doesn’t need those kinds of eyes on him right now. “I stole nothin’ you didn’t owe. If my memory serves right, it weren’t even _you_ that paid. It was—”

“Iris! Oh, you bastard,” Cole wails, pausing to take another swig from his bottle. He jabs Arthur in the chest with his index finger. “ _You!_ You took ‘er! Stole her away and now I gotta beg on the street for a drink! _Kidnapper!”_

Folk are staring at them now. Women swiftly walking away from the scene, men eyeing Arthur suspiciously with their hands resting heavily on their guns.

Arthur’s spilled enough blood in Strawberry. He doesn’t want another fight on his hands, not here. He raises his hands in surrender, leaning back from old Jameson Cole and his whiskey stench. “You’re drunk, old man. Get out of here and stop makin’ a scene.”

Jameson Cole blinks blearily at Arthur, breaths coming out like wheezes. “You give her back. You give back Iris, oh, stupid little Iris, I’m afraid the house neeeeeds a cleaning! She ain’t been back since ya ran off with her!”

“I don’t have her, you old fool,” Arthur sneers, walking away from the man. “Maybe your granddaughter saw sense and ran far away from ya!”

Arthur shouldn’t care, the Coles are people he should be done with. If the world were in any way kind to him, he’d have never seen them again. But the knowledge that Miss Iris Cole didn’t return home after that whole mess with the treasure hunters doesn’t sit well with him.

 _Should’ve seen to it that she got home safe,_ he berates himself, _you goddamn idiot, Morgan._ What kind of man does that? Leave a woman out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a bunch of dead bodies? This is why he loathes debt collection. Arthur’s already a bad man, he knows that, but collecting debts has always brought out a shade of himself he does not like any more than he likes his usual self.

Arthur sighs and mounts Charon again, muttering under his breath. “Don’t owe these people a goddamn thing. Ah, you fool, Morgan.”

He starts to ride out of Strawberry—so much for a night in the hotel—and takes the road leading in the direction of Owanjila.

“Hey, you!” Someone calls to him at the end of the main road—a young woman lugging a bucket full of fresh water. “Mister, I heard you talking to that awful old man.”

Arthur slows his horse, running a tired hand down his face. “Listen, Miss, I already told the man I don’t have his granddaughter—”

“But you’re heading out to look for her, right?” The woman presses, a bit of water sloshing out of the bucket. “That’s why you’re leaving town?”

“Yeah,” Arthur grunts, half shrugging. “I guess.”

“I work with Iris at the hotel,” the woman says, frowning softly, concerned. “She came to the hotel last night. Late last night, a strange look in her eyes. She told me Mr. Davis is dead and that she’s leaving.”

“Leaving? Where?”

“She didn’t say exactly,” the woman’s frown deepens. “I don’t think she quite knew where she was goin’ either. Just said. North. North of Big Valley. If you’re looking for her, you might want to start there.”

“Big Valley,” Arthur nods. The cabin he plans to rob is around there. Good. This won’t be a complete waste of his time. “Thank you, Miss.”

“Please find her, sir. She didn’t… she looked—she didn’t look quite right.”

Guilt stirs in the pit of his stomach. “I’ll get moving, then. Have a good afternoon, Miss.”

 

-

 

Iris ignores her rumbling stomach and walks along the road, treasure map clutched in one hand and Sammy's reigns in the other.

Her feet hurt. These old boots certainly weren’t made for walking, but she keeps on.

She knows where the treasure is. Or, at least, she'll know it when she sees it. There's no special instinct to treasure hunting, after all. Considering what Mr. Morgan did yesterday (or was it the day before?), it's as easy as sticking your arm into a hollow rock.

The treasure is by water, a shallow bed of water, according to the illustration on the map. And it's in Big Valley. That, she knows. Has to be. It's a gut feeling. Perhaps there _is_ a special instinct _._

Sammy lets out a whinny of protest, nodding his head and almost yanking the reigns out of Iris’s hand.

“I know,” Iris says. “I know, I know. But we're almost there, Sammy. We have to be. We ain’t riding back to Strawberry any time soon.”

Sammy huffs, sounding almost disapproving, but begins to follow again when Iris tugs on the reigns.

There’s that thundering sound again, her stomach groaning for food. Iris doesn’t have any food. She knows nothing of plant life, either. She only knows that eating the wrong plant can be a deadly thing. Better to be hungry for a day than to die by a plant.

The thundering sound continues, though her stomach has stopped its protests. The sound is distant, getting closer by the second. It's a rider, she realizes, the familiar galloping sound of a horse.

Iris stops and turns in the direction of the sound. Whoever it is, they’re heading straight towards her.

Oh. It’s the outlaw.

Iris clutches the map tight in her hand and stands close to Sammy, right next to the saddlebags. If he’s changed his mind and come back to rob her, she’s got one of the dead treasure hunter’s cattleman revolvers.

The memory of Mr. Morgan gunning down the treasure hunters is fresh on her mind again. He moves fast, Iris probably wouldn’t even be able to pull out her gun before he robs her. She’d at least like to try to get a few shots in, though.

He clicks his tongue and stops his horse when he’s close enough. His guns, notably, are in their respective holsters, not at all drawn and pointed at Iris when he dismounts his horse.

“Miss Cole,” he greets, hands resting on his gun belt. He’s exactly the same as when she first met him, lurking outside her homestead like a bad omen. Only this time, there’s no growl to his voice. There’s a roughness that’s still there, ever-present to the man’s voice, but this time around his greeting doesn’t sound like _danger_.

“Mr. Morgan,” she says back, voice feeble not with fear but with a tiredness. “You’ve… you’ve returned to rob me.”

Mr. Morgan tilts his head back, scrutinizing her from under the brim of his hat.

Iris is sure she looks as though some sort of fiendish wind has passed through. She hasn’t spared a moment to maintain a civilized appearance—her braid is all out of sorts from the wind and her fidgeting with it, her skirts are muddy from all the walking, her shoes are on the verge of falling to pieces, and she’s quite sure that her sore eyes are bloodshot, with darkened circles of exhaustion to complete the look.

Oh, she must look half-mad.

“No, ah,” the outlaw clears his throat awkwardly, scratching at his short beard. “No, I am not here to rob you.”

“Then what is this?” Iris frowns, hand tightening on Sammy’s reigns. “Have I stolen something of yours, then? Another debt that has to be paid?”

Mr. Morgan looks uncomfortable. “No.”

“Then _why_ have you sought me out? I thought you’d have gone far, far away from Strawberry by now.”

“Well,” Mr. Morgan takes a step forward, cautious as though he might spook her. “The people in town said you haven’t been seen for a good while, and I didn’t like how I just left you in the middle of nowhere the other day, so I came out to… well, to check on ya.”

“Do you always check on your debtors after you’ve taken their money?”

He frowns. “Well, no. But—"

“Then why bother? You don’t have a to give me, or my granddaddy, or the entirety of Strawberry a second thought. A lapse of judgement is what you’re experiencing, Mr. Morgan. So allow me to direct you back to Strawberry, and we can go our separate ways.”

Mr. Morgan’s voice rises an octave, indignance lacing his voice. “Direct me back to Str—”

“To Strawberry, yes.” Iris lets go of Sammy’s reigns and crosses the short distance between them. She rests her hand lightly on Mr. Morgan’s arm and nudges him to turn around, pointing somewhere off behind him with the map clutched tight in her hand. “You can get to Strawberry simply by going back the direction you came from.”

Mr. Morgan resists at first, then obliges her light shoving and turns. “I _know_ that, Miss Cole. You might think me a fool, but I’m at least a fool who knows where he’s going— _is that a treasure map?”_

“It is.” Iris swiftly retracts herself from his space and starts walking away, her sore feet screaming with each step. “And it’s close.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing this whole time? People are worried about ya, Miss Cole.”

“I’m sure the only person breaking a sweat is Gramps, since I’m not there to clean up after him.”

“Well, what about your job?” Mr. Morgan says, following hastily after her. “Ain’t the hotel manager wondering where you are?”

“The hotel manager is dead,” Iris reminds him, halting to glare at a spot in the distance. Little Creek River. “Those treasure hunters shot Mr. Davis in the head.”

“Shit. Well… well someone else must’ve stepped up in the hotel,” Mr. Morgan says slowly, trying to salvage whatever’s left of his persuasion attempt. “There’s gotta be _somethin’_ in town that you gotta get back to. You can’t just wander around forever.”

Iris briskly spins around to glare at him. Mr. Morgan’s standing close enough that her long dark braid whips across his chest at the motion. “My boss at the hotel is dead. My job is most likely up in the air at the moment, and this is a moment I’d like to take to reflect on how I’ve been living my life.”

Mr. Morgan presses his lips together. “But you got—”

“I have nothing in that town, in that life, except for my leech of a granddaddy!” Iris looks at the worn map in her hands and sighs. “I don’t know if I want to go back to Strawberry, Mr. Morgan. I feel as though I’ve been going through my life like a phantom, and I need to start going through it like a _person_. With… with some kind of ambition. Something to look forward to.”

“Those are some dangerous thoughts, Miss Cole.”

“Are they?” Iris sighs again. “Twenty-seven years wasted in Strawberry. Did you know I’ve never set foot outside of West Elizabeth? Let alone Big Valley? I’ve got nothing to show for my life.”

“You don’t…” Mr. Morgan scowls. “You don’t have to show anyone anything.”

“I want to show _myself_ something,” Iris says firmly, steeling his gaze. He often hides underneath his hat, she’s noticed, and being close enough now to peek under the brim and catch his blue-green eyes feels like she’s discovered something hidden once again. “I don’t know what I plan to do with my life after this, but for now, all I know is that I want to find this treasure. I want to _show_ myself that I can find it.”

“And where is this treasure, huh?” Mr. Morgan scoffs. “No need to get all protective. I ain’t gonna take it from ya. I just… you—you look like hell, Miss Cole.”

Iris feels her face heat up. She scowls and walks away from him again, towards the soft sounds of trickling water. “I’m _going_ to get this treasure, with or without your bothering.”

She hears Mr. Morgan mutter something under his breath, but he keeps following her. Risking a glance back, she sees that their horses are following after them slowly.

Little Creek River looks shallow enough that the water would barely come up to her ankles. Iris does her best to ignore Mr. Morgan’s lingering, glaring hard at the map while she hears him light a cigarette.

This looks like the spot. The way the illustration’s lines are darker around this particular bend looks precisely the same as the area in front of her. Iris’ eyes flit back and forth between the map and the riverbend before her. The _X_ looks to be about ten feet away, buried right in the bed of the creek.

“How do you know that this is the river in the map?” Mr. Morgan’s voice grates over her thinking. He stands by their horses, cigarette between his fingers and a curious look on his face.

“I like riding around the valley when I get the time,” Iris answers, folding up the map and walking towards the treasure spot, the soil wet beneath her boots. “Not as often as I’d like, but… I admire the landscapes long enough to guess right about which stone goes where.”

“Well, you found that treasure last time. I can’t argue with that.” He snuffs the cigarette and looks around. “Damn. It’s gonna be dark any minute now.”

“Scared of the dark, Mr. Morgan?”

“Nah. Just don’t wanna die like an idiot, is all.” He walks to where she’s standing in the creek, brows raised as she kicks around the silt. “The wildlife around ain’t something to underestimate. Especially in the dark.”

Iris glances at him before sticking her hands into the cold, cold water to dig. “Could we camp, perhaps?”

“We?”

“I’m assuming you’re not going to leave me alone until we get back to Strawberry.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Mr. Morgan sighs. “Just… get a move on with that, will ya? Sun’s already coming down, and I’d rather find somewhere with four walls and a roof.”

Iris snorts, extracting her hands from the silt and opting to dig into the spot beside her previous attempt. “I suppose that’s better than a tent. But I doubt the folk living up in these parts would be hospitable.”

“There’s a cabin a heard about. I was plannin’ to camp there for a night or two to scope out another place nearby. Vetter’s Echo, I think it was called. Heard the owner hasn’t been seen for a _long_ time. Whoever they are, they’re likely long gone, I’m positive they won’t mind if we use their place as shelter.”

“What were you planning to head up here for, if not to find me for whatever’s nagging at your conscience?” Iris says, then snorts. “An outlaw with a conscience, how ironic.”

Mr. Morgan makes a noncommittal sound. “It’s none of your business. Anyway, the cabin should just be up the ways from here. There’s likely some provisions there, which we need, because you’re lookin’ mighty peckish.”

“Were you planning a robbery?”

“None of your goddamn business, Miss Cole. You don’t need to get involved with that,” Mr. Morgan says firmly, all but confirming her suspicions.

Iris quietly wonders if she _does_ want to get involved with that. She digs deeper into the silt, dirt getting caught beneath her fingernails. What _does_ she plan to do after all of this? She can’t go back to monotonous life in Strawberry. She refuses.

Her nails scrape against something solid in the dirt. Iris jumps at the contact. “Oh! I’ve found it!”

Whatever it is, it’s smaller than a buried treasure chest from pirate stories. Definitely not shaped like any container Iris has seen before. Her fingers find some part to grip and curl around it, pulling it out of the riverbed. The top of it emerges from the silt as she pulls it up, smooth and bone white under the water.

Iris manages to pull the treasure up halfway before she recoils with a shriek, falling backward into the creek and soaking up even more of her skirts.

Mr. Morgan is next to her in a second, boots splashing in the shallow water and hands hovering cautiously over her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Iris doesn’t answer, just stares wide-eyed at the human skull still stuck in the silt. The human skull she dug up with her bare hands. Her skin crawls.

Mr. Morgan eyes follow to where she’s looking. He breathes an astounded, eloquent, _“Jesus.”_

“I… I touched it. Him. Her. Whoever they were,” Iris whispers, distraught. “I…”

“Well,” Mr. Morgan mutters, wading over to the skull. “Looks like you found your treasure.”

Mr. Morgan pulls the skull out of the silt and water, standing to his full height. Something about seeing him—someone else— _taking_ her findings in their hands kicks Iris back into motion. Splashing a bit in the creek, Iris scrambles to a stand and snatches the skull right out of the outlaw’s hands.

“Thought you were frightened of it,” he says, shrugging and raising his hands in surrender.

_Maybe at first._

“I was just surprised,” Iris says, narrowing her eyes at the small grin on his face. She turns her attention back to the skull. “Whoever this dead fella was… he can’t hurt me. Why should I be scared?”

“It’s not every day you dig up a dead head with your bare hands,” Mr. Morgan offers, perhaps attempting to console her. “Surprise and, uh, fear—it’s reasonable.”

Iris doesn’t answer him, but she frowns anyway, looking down at the skull so maybe Mr. Morgan doesn’t see her flushed face.

It’s already dark, the sun had fully set while she was digging, but Iris sees something in the skull’s hollowed eye catch briefly under the starlight. The smallest of shines.

“Miss Cole,” Mr. Morgan says, standing much closer now to look at the skull over her shoulder. His clothes smell like cigarette smoke. “I think you’re gonna have to—”

“Yes,” Iris cuts his sentence off swiftly, quietly. She swallows hard. “Yes, I see.”

“Would you like me to do it? It’ll still be your treasure, even if you let me.”

“I can do it. I _will_ do it.”

Iris readjusts the skull in her hands, turning it upside down. She keeps a firm grip on the jaw, fingers sliding into the small, stiff opening of the mouth. With her other hand, she hooks her fingers into both eye holes, grimacing.

 _Sorry,_ she thinks. Then she pulls her hands apart with a sharp tug.

There’s a crunch as the jawbone snaps clean off, Mr. Morgan standing so close that with the force of her tug she accidentally elbows him when the piece comes loose. He lets out a small, winded _oof_ as her elbow collides with his gut.

“Oh, sorry,” Iris says quietly, out of polite instinct. She’s not really paying attention, instead gazing into the hollow of the opened skull.

“No harm done,” he mutters.

There’s still quite a bit of bone in the way, but Iris turns the skull back right side up and shakes its contents into her palm. Several gold coins fall out, along with two more gold nuggets, and a small scrap of paper.

“You’re telling me that all this was buried not even a foot into the ground, for any fool to find?” Mr. Morgan huffs. “I should give up robberies n’ just start digging.”

“Any fool _with a map_ ,” Iris corrects, staring at the gold bunched in her hand with wide, wide eyes.

“And you knew exactly where it was again,” Mr. Morgan muses, stepping back and adjusting his hat. “Think you got a knack for this, Miss Cole.”

“I do, don’t I?” Iris looks down at herself, holding the treasures tight in her hand and the skull in the other. No bag, no pockets. She looks back up, past Mr. Morgan’s impressed expression and instead squints at the horses grazing several feet behind him. “Sammy! Sammy over here!”

Sammy finds the grass more interesting than the gold Iris is holding. Typical, that horse never listens to anyone.

“I’ll get him,” Mr. Morgan says, waving a hand as he walks away from her. He takes Sammy’s reigns and starts leading the horse towards where Iris stands by the creek, and whistles for his own dark horse to follow. “Charon! Follow me, boy.”

“Charon?” Iris asks when he’s back within earshot. “How dramatic of you.”

“Thought it’d fit him well,” the outlaw smiles fondly, tugging Sammy’s reigns. “I stole him at this show just outside of Valentine. There was a man on the stage, no arms and no legs, telling old Greek tales.”

“And you stole his horse?” Iris asks, clutching the skull and gold close to her chest.

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “Some bastard thought it’d be funny to throw things at the storyteller. He had a _fine_ horse. That’s Charon right here,” he jerks his thumb over his shoulder, pointing to his horse following him. “This here’s a dark bay Andalusian—a war horse. Thought it’d be nice to name him after that half-horse half-man the limbless man spoke of. The one who trained heroes.”

Iris frowns. She’s not the most educated person. Not educated like those city folks who stay at the hotel, but she has read some books, especially the ones educated city folk accidentally leave behind. A book about old myths from far away lands kept her up for weeks.

“Forgive me, Mr. Morgan, but I think you’re confused.”

He stops Sammy right in front of her and lets go of the reigns. “Confused?”

“The half-horse half-man you’re thinking of is Chiron. An easy mistake, I suppose, since the names are quite similar.”

Mr. Morgan stops and stares at her in disbelief. Perhaps he’s expecting her to laugh and joke, but she’s quite sure that Charon is _not_ the figure he’s thinking of.

“Goddammit,” he exhales, voice rising an octave. He shakes his head, hiding beneath the brim of his hat. Iris wonders if he’s blushing. “So you’re tellin’ me I’ve been calling my horse some nonsense this whole time?”

“Not quite nonsense, no.” Iris walks over to Sammy’s saddlebag. “If I recall, Charon served as a ferryman to bring souls to Hades.”

Mr. Morgan hums, squinting at his horse as if to see if the story sticks.

Iris tries to fit the treasures in the small saddlebag, but the gun she picked off the dead treasure hunter is in the way. “If you keep the name, your horse is now death’s ferryman. Do you… do you see yourself as death, Mr. Morgan? Or I suppose the name could extend to you, making your horse the vessel and you the actual ferryman.”

“Well…” Mr. Morgan rests his hands on his gun belt, clearing his throat awkwardly. “I have killed some people… quite a lot of people. But it was them or me. Ah, I shouldn’t be saying these things to a lady.”

Before Iris can respond, she grabs the gun in the saddlebag the wrong way. Intending to extract it from the bag to make room, she accidentally hits the trigger and a shot fires a hole out of the bottom of the bag.

“Oh!” Iris startles back, ears ringing from the closeness of the gunshot. Sammy whinnies and rocks his head back and forth in a panic. Charon, on the other hand, doesn’t flinch at the sound.

“Jesus!” Mr. Morgan yells, hand instinctively falling to one of the revolvers holstered on his belt. “What the _hell_ was that?”

“I… the gun—damn, I blew a hole through the saddlebag!”

“ _Why_ is there a gun in the saddlebag?”

“I took it from one of those treasure hunters you killed!” Iris snaps back at him. “What’s the problem with keeping it in on my horse, anyway? You got an entire armory on your _war horse_ , Mister.”

Mr. Morgan sighs and runs a hand down his face. “Jesus.”

“Oh, this damn bag is ruined.” The saddlebag is useless now. The hole at the bottom is big enough for any of the treasures to fall out.

Mr. Morgan motions for her to come closer. “Alright, give the gold to me. I can put it in my satchel for the time being.”

“No!” Iris scowls, holding the treasures close. “Do you take me for some kind of idiot?”

“You’re an idiot if you think it’ll be a good idea to walk back into Strawberry holding that gold out for everyone to see.”

“How do I know you won’t just run away the moment I hand the gold over to you?”

Mr. Morgan places his hand on his chest, eyes serious. “I give ya my word that I won’t, Miss. I just wanna see you home safe.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Iris says. “You’ve made it clear several times that you rob people for a living.”

Something moves in Sammy’s saddlebag. A slow, sliding movement before it falls right out of the hole and lands on the grass with a thump. Her first gold nugget from the last treasure.

“Miss Cole, your treasure’s as good as gone if you try carrying it in that bag. I promise I won’t steal from you.”

Iris narrows her eyes at him, trying to look as threatening as she can, but the threat is lost the moment her hungry stomach rumbles as loud as thunder in the sky. Mr. Morgan’s lips quirk, the damned outlaw is trying not to laugh.

“Alright. Fine,” Iris frowns, stepping towards him. “Put it in your bag.”

Mr. Morgan flashes her a small, tight smile and moves for his satchel, opening it up for her to dump her gold into.

“You’re not keeping that skull, are ya?”

“I thought it could be a souvenir. A trophy for my findings.”

“I’m not carrying a dead fella in my satchel.”

“Oh, alright,” Iris says, slightly dejected. She turns around and tosses the skull back into the creek.

“Poor bastard,” Mr. Morgan says, watching the skull splash into the water. He picks up the last gold nugget from the ground and turns to his horse. “Come on, I’m sure there’ll be some food for you at Vetter’s Echo.”

 

-

 

The cabin is one of the smallest Iris has ever seen, and the moment she and Mr. Morgan hitch their horses a bad feeling settles in the pit of her stomach.

“Keep that gun with ya,” Mr. Morgan says. “We might find a holster for that in here. That means no more shooting holes through bags.” 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Iris asks, following him up the path. “What if someone _is_ still living there? What if they don’t want us around?”

In the dark, the cabin looks eerie. What if whoever’s inside has gone mad from the isolation? What if they try to attack Mr. Morgan? Or if they try to attack her?

Iris tightens her hold on the treasure hunter’s revolver— _her_ revolver. _I’m a treasure hunter now too, I suppose._

“Then we rob whoever’s living in here,” Mr. Morgan shrugs, answering as if the answer was the simplest thing in the world. “Just enough to be on our way, we won’t let ‘em starve.”

“I saw camp supplies on your horse,” Iris suggests, casting a glance back at Charon in the trees. “Why couldn’t we just camp?”

“A fire and a tent ain’t gonna protect us if someone or some animal gets the wrong idea about approaching us,” Mr. Morgan answers gruffly. “Now if I was on my own, maybe I would’ve. But I think you’d be better indoors. Less chance for predators.”

Iris stops on the steps up to the cabin while Mr. Morgan quietly turns the doorknob. He grimaces when the door swings open with a rather loud creak, then takes a cautious step inside. Iris begins to follow him inside, but freezes when she hears a loud, loud rumble of breath.

 _“Shit,”_ is all she hears from Mr. Morgan inside before the roar of some kind of behemoth shakes the cabin.

There’s a shout from Mr. Morgan, and Iris makes it to the door to see a _bear_ on top of him, roaring and clawing at him. The back of the cabin looks like it’s been torn open long ago, and judging by the old corpse on the floor next to Mr. Morgan, this bear has been the only occupant of the cabin for quite some time.

Iris screams, unsure what to do as Mr. Morgan gets mauled, fear freezing the blood in her veins. She’s never seen a bear up close, and her mind can’t fathom just how _big_ a bear is. The walls of the cabin are practically hugging the creature.

Mr. Morgan cries out again, drawing a knife and slashing at the beast, and it’s only then that Iris registers that she’s _here_ and that she can do _something_. Something, maybe, with the gun in her hands.

“What in high hell!” Someone screams, voice full of terror. Oh, it’s coming from her, she’s the one doing the screaming.

Mr. Morgan just barely dodges a swipe of the bear’s teeth before Iris finally kicks into motion, drawing her revolver and unloading every bullet left.

Which is about three bullets.

The bear roars as the bullets embed themselves into its hide, but it doesn’t seem to be too injured. Instead, it is still _very_ intent on making Mr. Morgan its next meal. She watches Mr. Morgan continue his struggle, there’s a blur of the bear’s paws and suddenly a bleeding scratch on his arm.

Then she sees an old shotgun, lying on the ground between Mr. Morgan and the old corpse.

Iris has never fired a shotgun before.

She darts down for it, not really having to avoid the bear as it doesn’t even seem to be aware of her existence, and checks to see if the shotgun is loaded. Iris steps back into the doorframe and takes aim, this time being sure to not fire blindly and instead target the bear’s face.

In the heat of the moment, Iris forgets that some guns, powerful guns, not only pack a punch to whoever’s being shot, but also to whoever’s doing the shooting if they’re not prepared for it. Iris pulls the trigger, the blast of the gun deafening, and she sees the shot go right for the bear’s face before the recoil violently flings her back.

Iris hits the railing hard, promptly tumbling backward over it with a scream and free-falling several feet before she hits the ground.

She lies on the lumpy ground, flat on her back and blinking stars. Distantly, she still hears the bear’s growling, but now she hears Mr. Morgan’s ragged voice as well, calling out for her.

“Miss Cole! Goddammit! Miss Cole, you alive?”

Iris’ vision clears, and oh, the bear has left the cabin, breaking through the railing and heading straight for her. Its face is bloody, very bloody. _Did I do that?_

Oh, the bear looks very angry with her. Absolutely livid.

“Oh no,” she mumbles, disoriented, voice failing her as she starts backing away in the dirt. “Oh, please no.”

“Hey!” Mr. Morgan calls out, a desperate note to his rough voice. “Hey, you big bastard!”

The bear rises to its hind legs, towering over Iris and roaring. A shot rings out, and both the bear and Iris look back at the cabin to see Mr. Morgan standing by the broken rails, his hat gone to reveal a mop of short brown hair, pointing two revolvers at the bear with a furious look on his face.

Mr. Morgan fires both guns at the bear’s face. In that second, it’s as if there’s no end to the bullets. The speed of it takes Iris right back to when he gunned down those two treasure hunters before they could even blink.

The bear lets out one last groan before it collapses onto the ground, its big, bloody head landing right in front of Iris.

Mr. Morgan holsters his guns and starts walking over to her and the bear. “Did it get ya?”

Iris doesn’t directly answer. She only leans back to lie flat on the grass again, a twig poking into her head as she looks up at the night sky. “Oh my goodness.”

“I was not expecting _that_ ,” Mr. Morgan murmurs, kicking the bear’s paw as he inspects the corpse. “Thank you, by the way.”

Iris sits up, willing her heart to stop its panicked racing. “For what?”

“Shootin’ the damn thing. Saved my life.”

“Well, you killed it. I s’pose I should thank you for saving my life as well.”

“Nah,” he says, smoothing back his hair. “Makes us even, I guess.”

He then draws a knife, bends down, and begins cutting away into the bear.

“What… what are you doing, Mr. Morgan?”

“Arthur,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“Just call me Arthur.”

“Okay… Arthur. Well, then you can just call me Iris. I suppose there’s no need for formalities if you’ve fought a bear together.”

Mr. Morgan— _Arthur_ —huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I think camping might be safer, Arthur.”

“Yeah. That ain’t no four walls and a roof up there anyway.”

“Three walls and a dead man.”

Arthur snorts and tears at the bear’s skin. “Better him than us, Miss—uh, Iris.”

Iris plucks a leaf out of her hair. “Better him than us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, look at that, they're on a first name basis now
> 
> thank you to everyone who supported this in the first chapter!! oh, it definitely made me want to explore this more, so thank you! your comments/kudos were very very very much appreciated <3
> 
> also the limbless guy telling stories is not actually in valentine, that was me coming up for a reason to explain how arthur got an andalusian (that i acquired in-game from an exploit lol) while giving a slight nod to the 1/3 of _the ballad of buster scruggs_ on netflix that i watched (will i ever finish watching? probably not oops)


End file.
